mirza kadic
Chinese billionaire Ho Wan Kwok, often known as Guo Wengui and Miles Guo, has been charged by the Department of Justice for allegedly coordinating a greater than $1B fraud conspiracy that deceived his on-line followers into making investments in alternate for outsized earnings, in response to a Wednesday launch.
Kwok, an affiliate of ex-Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon, was arrested in New York and charged with 12 counts together with cash laundering, securities fraud and wire fraud.
Kwok and his financier Kin Ming Je, who has additionally been charged within the indictment however not but arrested, are accused of misappropriating “hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulently obtained funds.” He allegedly duped his on-line followers with guarantees of outsized returns in the event that they invested in media firm GTV Media Group, his so-called Himalaya Farm Alliance, G|CLUBS, and the Himalaya Exchange, prosecutors mentioned.
As alleged, Kwok as an alternative used these stolen funds to counterpoint himself, shopping for “a 50,000 square foot mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses, and financing a $37 million luxury yacht,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams mentioned in a press release. The fraud scheme was in movement from 2018 by way of March.
The U.S. authorities seized over $630M in alleged fraud proceeds from 21 totally different financial institution accounts.
In April 2020, Kwok apparently posted a video on social media saying the unregistered inventory providing in GTV by way of a personal placement, prosecutors famous. $452M price of GTV shares have been offered to over 5.5K traders by way of June 2020, howeverKwok and Kin Ming Je allegedly moved $100M of these funds simply days after the non-public placement to a high-risk hedge fund to counterpoint GTV’s father or mother firm that was owned by an in depth relative of Guo.
In November 2020, Bloomberg reported that Kwok, often known as Guo, sued UBS Group (UBS) for the loss he incurred after the lender known as in a margin mortgage.
